The present invention relates to garments, and more particularly to disposable gowns.
In recent years, gowns of the disposable type have come into widespread use due to convenience since they may be discarded after a single use and need not be laundered. Such gowns may be utilized for a number of different purposes, but have been found particularly useful in a hospital operating room. Of course, when worn in the operating room, the gowns must be sterile to prevent possible contamination to the patient during the operation. In a preferred form, the backs of the gowns below the gown neck should be maintained in a sterile condition, since the wearer of one gown may back into the gown front of an associate. If the gown back of the first person has been contaminated, such a collision may result in contamination of the associate's gown front, and the associate's contaminated gown poses a danger to the patient during the operation.
In the past, most of the sterile-back gowns have required a second person to close the gown back by such closures as internal ties in the gown. In the case of a surgical gown, the back flaps of the gown are normally closed by a non-sterile circulating nurse who finds it virtually impossible to insure that the back of the gown has not been contaminated while being closed, due to the nature of the gown closures.